HADLEY  , a township of

Hampshire county, Massachusetts, U.S.A., on the Connecticut river, about 20 M . N. of Springfield, served by the Boston & Maine railway . Pop . (1900), 1789; (1905, state census), 1895 ; (1910) 1999 . Area, about 20 sq. m . The principal villages are Hadley (or Hadley Center) and North Hadley . The level country along the river is well adapted to tobacco culture, and the villages are engaged in the manufacture of tobacco and brooms . Hadley was settled in 1659 by membersof the churches in Hartford and Wethersfield, Connecticut, who were styled " Strict Congregationalists" and withdrew from these Connecticut congregations because of ecclesiastical and doctrinal laxity there . At first the town was called Norwottuck, but within a year or two it was named after Hadleigh in England, and was incorporated under this name in 1661 . Hopkins Academy (1815) developed from Hopkins school, founded here in 1664 . The English regicides Edward Whalley and his son-in-law William Goffe found a refuge at Hadley from 1664 apparently until their deaths, and there is a tradition that Goffe or Whalley in 1675 led the people in repelling an Indian attack . From 1675 to 1713 Hadley, being in almost constant danger of attack from the Indians, was protected by a palisade enclosure and by stockades around the meeting-house .

From Hadley,

Hatfield was set apart in 1670, South Hadley in 1753, and Amherst in 1759• See Alice M . Walker, Historic Hadley (New York, 1906); and Sylvester Judd, History of Hadley (Northampton, 1863; new ed., 1905) .